


A flight to remember

by Cricket_crazy28



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: 2010 Under 19 World CUp, Baby cricketers, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:54:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26359795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cricket_crazy28/pseuds/Cricket_crazy28
Summary: Jos is flying off for his first major tournament and he's apprenhensive, until he meets a certain blue eyed boy...
Relationships: Jos Buttler/Joe Root
Comments: 81
Kudos: 9





	A flight to remember

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sherlockguineapig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlockguineapig/gifts).
  * Inspired by [All the ways they said they love each other](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25788997) by [j_obsessed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_obsessed/pseuds/j_obsessed). 



> Happy Birthday Jossy!! Hope you get lots and lots of cuddles today!!
> 
> Also Happy Birthday to Sherlockguineapig!! Have an amazing day darling!!  
> Just for reference this is what the boys looked like back in 2010:  
> https://twitter.com/cricuniverse/status/1134718536448978945  
> Just a note the line that is in bold italics in the middle belongs to my wonderfully talented wife Zee, because it was one of the most incredible things I have ever read and I just couldn't resist. If you wanna know the origins of that line follow the link in the end notes to the most amazingly fluffy piece in the world!

Sick.

That was how Jos felt as he walked into the security area of Heathrow after checking in and saying goodbye to his parents for the next two weeks at least. Deathly ill. (Well most likely just scared.) He had never been away from home for that long and now he was supposed to go all the way to New Zealand. All on his own. Without anyone he knows. And play cricket. For England. (Well for the under nineteen team anyway.) He was dying. 

  
  


Shaking with fear, he shuffled awkwardly over to the security area, trying desperately not to puke all over himself, and offloaded his phone and iPod and went through the scanner, trying to see if he could spot anyone else in an England tracksuit as he went. When he had gathered up his belongings, he once again glanced down at his boarding card and passport, checking which gate he was supposed to go to, the letter he had received from the ECB (that made him feel even sicker, the actual ECB the England Cricket Board, had sent him a letter with his name on it) had said that the team would all get together at the gate. 

Groaning, he realised that the gate was the furthest one possible and so he pulled his backpack onto his back and started dragging his carry on behind him as he set off trudging away to the gate.

Fifteen agonising minutes later (he could hear his sister's singsong voice in his head telling him not to pack all his books into his backpack), he reached the gate and finally spotted a small crowd of boys wearing the same shiny blue tracksuit that he was. He took a deep breath and begged all the gods he knew of, that his voice wouldn’t break/shake/completely shut down, when he tried to introduce himself to the coaches. 

But thankfully the gods were shining down on him that day, and he managed to introduce himself without having a breakdown or the coach giving him any funny looks. In fact, as soon as he introduced himself, the coach's face lit up in recognition, and he said that he was pleased to meet him and that he had heard lots of good things about him and couldn't wait to see him in action. Jos had managed to smile and nervously walked to the group of boys he'd been directed to by the coach. 

In the centre of the circle, there was a group of about five boys crowded around two people who were playing on PSPs. But the people who caught Jos' eye were the two boys sitting slightly apart from the rest of the boys, they had their head bent together as they shared a pair of earphones and listened to music from an iPod between them. One of the boys had a nest of dark blonde curls, whilst the other had spiky ginger hair, that looked laden with gel. Suddenly the blonde haired boy looked up and caught Jos looking at him, making him curse himself for being so socially awkward and staring, until his face suddenly split into the most beautiful smile Jos had ever seen and beckoned him over. Enraptured, Jos made his way over to the two boys, and smiled as the blonde boy began to speak,

"Hello my name's Joe, what's your name?" 

The boy had a very obvious Yorkshire accent and was clearly very confident but for some reason rather than putting Jos off like loud people usually did, he felt pulled in and comforted by the boy's clear blue eyes. He felt comfortable enough to speak without feeling awkward or embarrassed at all, which was an extremely rare occurrence for Jos. 

"Hi, my name's Jos," he replied. 

"Ooooh that's an interesting name I've never really heard before, is it like a different way to shorten Joshua?"

"Ermmm no, my name's actually Joseph but because I'm from Somerset I'm Jos rather than Joe"

"Hey my name's actually Joseph as well, Ben how cool is that?" He asked tapping the spiky haired boy on the arm. "We're both called Joseph. Oh I'm so sorry I didn't introduce you, Jos this is Ben. Ben, this is Jos." 

At this the ginger boy, Ben looked up and smiled and replied 

"Hi, how you doing? What do you do batting or bowling?"

He spoke in the most curious accent that weirdly sounded like a mix of kiwi and Geordie. 

But before Jos could reply Joe slapped himself on the head and said exasperatedly,

"Oh my god, I can't believe I didn't ask that!"

*** 

Joe would deny it until his deathbed, but that day he had been so captured by the green eyed boy with the musical accent.He had actually been rendered speechless for a few seconds and his mind had fully gone out of its usual cricket mad mode as if someone had asked him how to hold a bat he wouldn't have been able to answer for love nor money. 

***

Ben sent Joe a curious look before turning back to Jos expectantly,

"I'm a wicket keeper batsmen usually, but I'm going to be the back up keeper for this tournament and bat up the order instead. What about you two?"

"I'm an all rounder" came the younger boy's reply.

"And I'm a batsman but I can bowl some part time spin but I'm not amazing at it, but you know I try and I've been working at it with the coaches at school but who knows I might even get to bowl some over in..." Joe trailed off and turned red, realising that he had started to ramble. Joe chuckled and indicated that he should keep going but just as he had recovered they were called to board the flight. 

The first flight they were taking was the shortest of the three, taking six and a half hours to get them to Dubai. As they waited in line, the three compared tickets and realised that they were on the same row but Jos was sat on the window at one end with Joe next to him and Ben was at the other end with two aisles and seven seats between them. When they split at the door, the Josephs, as Ben would later dub them, promised to come and visit him as soon as they could. Jos let out a huge sigh of relief, when he 

finally sat down on his seat, thankful that the ordeal of the airport was finally done, shooting off a text to his parents, telling them he had boarded and would let them know when he got to Dubai. Next to him, the slightly taller boy did the same thing. 

As they listened to the safety briefing, Joe felt his heart rate begin to rise, he had never been very good at flying and the nerves were beginning to get to him. He gripped the armrest tightly until his knuckles had turned white, struggling to catch his breath. Jos looked down and caught sight of the younger boy's clenched hands and covered them with his own, startled at how cold they were. He sent Joe a small smile and gently asked

"Hey are you okay?"

"Fine." Came the reply through clenched teeth. Just as he said that the plane took off and began rattling through the air, causing Joe to instinctively bury his head in Jos' neck. 

***

Despite only meeting him half an hour ago, Joe felt safe with him. As if he would never judge him or make him feel embarrassed, he always knew that he would stand by him no matter what. 

***

Jos was initially surprised but as soon as he felt the smaller boy shaking, he started stroking a hand through Joe's hair and muttering reassuringly in his ear. 

When the plane finally reached its cruising altitude fifteen minutes later, Joe finally emerged from Jos' neck with slightly moist eyes but looking a lot more stable than he was before. 

"Thank you" he muttered softly, blushing slightly. 

"Don't worry at all we all get scared sometimes. Marcus once told me that _**even people who are incredible and talented, and amazing, need a bit of help sometimes.**_ "

This did nothing to help Joe whose blush intensified as he spotted the compliment in the sentence.

"How do you know that I'm talented?" asked Joe confused, "You've never even seen me play." 

Now it was Jos' turn to blush as he quietly muttered,

" I saw you at a festival last summer and you were incredible and you made two centuries in two matches and took an amazing catch that was really far away on your left."

This broke the final bits of ice, awkwardness and embarrassment between the two boys and began a conversation about the various intricacies of cricket, that made the next six hours seem more like six minutes, until the captain announced that the flight was going to be landing shortly, causing Joe's heart rate to climb again. Once again his hands started clutching the armrest as if his life depended on it, but this time Jos was aware of it, so he gently prised them away from the plastic and held them tightly between his own, transferring as much comfort and warmth to them as possible. It seemed as though in the course of just six hours, Joe's body had become completely attuned with Jos' and it immediately started to relax at his touch. 

After a bumpy landing, in which Joe had again ended with his head buried in Jos' neck, they had finally reached Dubai airport. Here they had to sit around for six hours with absolutely nothing to do but wait. They had met up with Ben again in the flight corridor, continuing their conversation from the flight and including Ben in it as if the whole ordeal around the landing had never happened. 

When they got to the terminal, Jos immediately went off to get some coffee coming back with three cups in his hands, one hot chocolate for himself, a cappuccino for Ben and a normal coffee with one sugar and a tiny bit of creamer for Joe. The blue eyed boy was astonished that Jos had managed to remember his order perfectly despite only hearing him ask for it once on the plane. Jos handed it to Joe with his usual grin on his face, but soon jerked as he felt the electricity through his hands when they brushed Joe's over the cup. Ben drank his hot chocolate and immediately passed out on the chair, much to the amusement of everyone else, considering how uncomfortable his position was.

Jos then got out his iPod and started asking Joe about his music tastes, " I'm a typical Yorkie Indie kid unfortunately," he replied sheepishly, bringing out his own iPod and showing Jos his iPod which was paused on Mardy Bum by the Arctic Monkeys

This started a three hour long conversation about their various music and TV tastes with each teasing the other for their taste and making them listen to various songs by their favourite artists. Joe had finally managed to persuade Jos to listen to Toothpaste Kisses by the Maccabees, when Ben woke up, announced he was hungry and dragged them both along to find them food. 

The next three hours passed in a blur of Big Macs, coke and arguments about the merits of various different weighted bats, and suddenly they were being herded onto their next flight. This next flight would take them all the way to Sydney, but it was excruciatingly long taking almost fourteen hours. The boys were again sat in the same configuration, allowing Jos to immediately take hold of Joe's hand this time rather than waiting for him to attempt to break the arm rest first. Joe immediately buried his head in Jos' neck, waiting for Jos to start running his hands through his hair. 

They both started to doze off a bit, soon after they reached cruising altitude, still trying to keep up their conversation, not willing to stop trying to learn everything they could about one another. But finally, sleep and the exhaustion of the day set in and both boys succumbed to sleep. 

*** 

When Ben came to visit them a few hours later, he found the two of them cuddled as close as possible together, with one blanket over both of them, both smiling as they slept. 

***

When it came to about six hours after they had taken off, Jos discovered that he couldn't move his right arm as if had been barricaded in a vice like grip by the Yorkshire batsman. He was cuddling it as he slept, making him look like a contented blonde child. He looked absolutely adorable and Jos couldn't be to wake him up, so he carefully took his book out of his backpack and began to read, always making sure that Joe’s head wasn’t hanging forward or hitting anything. 

When Joe came round a bit later, he rubbed his eyes until he could focus and looked at the object he was cuddling. When he realised who the arm belonged to he glanced up to apologise, only to find the owner of said arm looking at him already with a smile on his face. 

"Good morning, I hope I didn't wake you."

"No not at all, sorry about your arm" came the mumbled reply. 

"How long did I sleep?"

"Well we've been on the plane for about seven hours now but I only woke up about half an hour ago."

"Oh. What are you reading?, " asked Joe gesturing at the book in Jos' lap. 

The keeper then showed him the book, the autobiography of Ian Botham. 

"Marcus said that he had read it right before his first match with England and he said it had really helped him, so I decided to read it."

"Wait who's Marcus? Is this the same Marcus that told you that everyone needs help?"

"Ermmm" Jos blushed a deep red "It's Marcus Trescothick"

"Wait you mean to tell me that you know THE MARCUS TRESCOTHICK well enough to know his book choices and you didn't tell me!"

"He's my captain and he's always looked out for me even when I was in the second XI because we met once when both of us were really upset and we've been quite close ever since."

This made the conversation turn to their experiences with their counties and the way that they had started playing the game, and yet again they heard themselves telling each other things that they had never told anyone before. 

By the time that they landed at Sydney airport some six hours later, they felt the excitement of playing in a World Cup against all of the best players of their age group begin to creep up on them. After six more hours at Sydney airport where they bantered with Ben and learnt more about him, they got ready to fly to his birth city of Christchurch. Ben had moved to England only six years ago so he still knew the city well enough to be able to promise to show them around if they had any free time. 

When the plane began to take off again, the boys got into their positions quickly, with a practiced ease that made them feel as though they had been doing it for years. They spent the next seven hours watching a film together, syncing up their screens as best they could, and chatting amongst themselves. 

After the final landing, the boys both let out a sigh of relief that they would no longer have to go on any more planes. There was a steady sense of anticipation building over the entire group, as they proceeded towards the passport control a kind of shared excitement strumming through all of their veins. 

When he finally got to the hotel, Jos got out his phone and sent his Mum a text:

To:Mum

From:Jos

_ Just reached the hotel, long flight really tired. I've found some friends. I've got a good feeling about this trip. Love you _

**Author's Note:**

> All comments are much appreciated!  
> Love you all loads  
> Xx  
> Esha


End file.
